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Vang Pao

Guerrilla Leader, 81

By Emily RauhalaWednesday, Dec. 14, 2011

John Dominis / Time Life Pictures / Getty Images

He was born in the Laotian jungle in 1929 and died Jan. 6 in suburban
Clovis, Calif. Along the way, General Vang Pao, son of Hmong farmers,
became a key, if controversial, American ally and the symbolic father
of a persecuted people.

Vang Pao, who was 81, is best known for his role in America's "secret
war," a covert, CIA-backed campaign against Laos' Viet Cong-aligned
leaders during the Vietnam War. In the lead-up to war, North
Vietnamese forces cut tracks through the Laotian jungle, creating the
supply route now known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Laos was also at war,
split between the communist Pathet Lao and the Royal Lao forces. The
Americans teamed up with the latter, working with Vang Pao and a band
of guerrilla fighters to disrupt the North's network of trails. For
Vang Pao's 15-year fight against Southeast Asia's communists, former
CIA chief William Colby once called him "the biggest hero of the
Vietnam War."

But Vang Pao's relationship with the U.S.  as with his homeland  was
always complicated. In 2007, after a lengthy investigation known as
Operation Tarnished Eagle, the ex-CIA operative was arrested for
plotting to overthrow the Laotian government. He was charged under the
U.S. Neutrality Act, a security clause that prohibits actions on
American soil against foreign governments with whom Washington is at
peace. Federal prosecutors alleged Vang Pao, then 77, and several
colleagues were funding guerrilla fighters living in Laos. Vang Pao
didn't deny the charge but countered that the CIA was well aware of
his plans to send American weapons to his former comrades in arms. The
case against him, which drew outrage, was later dropped.

It was not the first time the general felt he had been slighted by
Washington. In 1975, after Saigon fell, Vang Pao and his fighters were
all but abandoned. Thousands were killed, and tens of thousands took
to the hills or traveled overland to camps in neighboring Thailand.
Some languish there still. Vang Pao was among the 100,000 or so Hmong
who eventually made it to the U.S., where they were "resettled,"
primarily in California, Minnesota and Wisconsin. But America's
erstwhile allies were not welcomed as heroes  far from it. The
government did not officially acknowledge Hmong fighters until 1997.
That year, Washington recognized their heroism with a small copper
plaque. Vang Pao and some 3,000 veterans attended the ceremony.

Vang Pao's exile in America was spent advocating for Hmong refugees
and bolstering the resistance movement in Laos. He helped found the
United Lao National Liberation Front and spoke out against the forced
repatriation of Hmong refugees living in Thai camps. At 80, he vowed
to return to Laos to help broker peace between his people and the
country's communist leaders; those leaders said they'd execute him if
he tried. Vang Pao, like so many of the Hmong, never got to go home.

This text originally appeared in the Jan. 24, 2011 issue of TIME magazine.